Opening Day Lied: Every Live Series Card's First Rating vs Its Last

The best cards on Opening Day mostly ended the season worse. Of the 20 highest-rated Live Series cards at launch, only 6 finished higher after the October 2 roster update. The other 14 went down.

The cards that moved the most mostly moved with the player. I took the biggest season-long moves among Gold and better cards and checked each one against the player's real 2026 season. Eight of eleven clearly went the way the season did. The other three depend on which number you trust.

Two of mine went down with them

I own two of those 14. Like every first copy of a Live Series card I pulled, my Francisco Lindor and José Ramírez went straight into a collection in the spring, when both were Diamonds rated 90.

Lindor held at 90 until July 16, dropped to 88, then to 85 on September 11. Ramírez had already slipped from 91 to 90 on May 8, before I pulled him. He fell to 87 on August 14 and to 85 on September 11.

Both are still Diamonds. Both are 85s. I wrote about what that cost me in stubs in how to make stubs. This post is about the rating itself: how often a launch rating holds, and what moves it.

The whole set, launch to October 2

There are 2,084 Live Series cards in MLB The Show 26. Across the 26 roster updates from March 27 to October 2, SDS's update notes show a rating change for 1,152 of them at least once. The other 932 never show one. For 91 of those, the notes list other ratings moving, like contact, control or vision, but no change to the overall.

SDS also added 504 Live Series cards during the season. I'll come back to those. Of the cards that were in the game at launch, SDS's notes show a rating change for 985.

For 101 of those, SDS changed the card's position before its notes first listed it, most of them pitchers moved between roles, so I can't tell what they started at. Leaving those out, of the other 884:

• 437 finished higher than they started.
• 378 finished lower.
• 69 ended exactly where they started, after going up and back down, or down and back up.

Most of them didn't go far. 478 of the 884, about half, ended within 3 points of where they started.

The 884 launch cards SDS's notes show re-rated, leaving out the 101 whose position changed before their first listing, by how far each rating moved over the season.

So more cards went up than down. But the top of the board went the other way.

The 20 best Live Series cards at launch. Only six ended the season higher.

Ohtani is the only one who became a Red Diamond, 92 to 95. Yordan Alvarez gained the most of the six, 88 to 93. At the other end, four launch Diamonds finished the season as Silvers: Cal Raleigh, Kyle Tucker, Gunnar Henderson and Trea Turner.

Part of the reason is room. A card rated 90 at launch has much more space to fall than to rise. Part 1 of this series saw the same thing from the other side: in the big updates, Diamonds that moved went up only 38% of the time.

The biggest risers had the seasons

These are the five biggest rises among launch cards rated 80 or more at launch or on October 2, so the cards people actually play with.

Four of these clearly had better years. Montgomery's card now lists him as a closer. Misiorowski and Schlittler both started the season as Silvers and finished as Diamonds, and only four Live Series cards ended the season rated higher than Misiorowski's 92.

Logan Henderson is the fifth, and he's not clear-cut. His ERA was better in 2025, but that was five starts. In 2026 he made 18. His walks fell from about 2.8 per nine innings to about 1.7, and his strikeouts dipped from about 11.7 to 10.1. All of his rise came late: 65 to 72 on August 14, then 78, then 80.

The biggest fallers had the seasons too, mostly

Same rule, the other way. Two cards tied at −10, so there are six.

Raleigh is the headline. He came into the season off 60 home runs and finished it hitting .182, with the first trip to the injured list of his career in May. His card lost 11 points across four big updates and went from Diamond to Silver.

Raleigh, Naylor, Gunnar Henderson and Bradish all had clearly worse years. Ward is another one that depends on the number: his average barely moved and he walked more, but his power was gone, 36 home runs to 7. He was traded from the Orioles to the Mariners in August.

Four of the six are Mariners, Ward included by the end of the season.

The one that doesn't fit, unless it does

Kirby lost 12 points, the most of anyone on this list, and his ERA barely moved: 4.21 to 4.33.

Judge him by ERA and a 12-point drop looks far too big. Judge him by what a pitcher's rating is built from and it looks different. His strikeouts fell from about 9.8 per nine innings to about 7.6, and his walks went up, from 29 to 47 in more innings. Part 1 found walk rate is the single biggest driver of a pitcher's overall. So he goes with Logan Henderson and Ward: right on one number, wrong on another.

That's eight of eleven that clearly followed the season, and three that depend on which number you trust. None of the eleven went clearly the wrong way.

The eleven biggest moves among Gold and better cards, plus Crow-Armstrong, one big update at a time.

Off the list: Crow-Armstrong

The rule leaves out the card I'd have led with. Pete Crow-Armstrong only rose 9 points, 85 to 94, so he isn't on the list. But his card dropped first, 85 to 83 on May 8. Then it went up at each of the next four big updates, to 85, 89, 91 and 94, and held at 94 on October 2. He hit .280 with 45 home runs and 41 steals. Only Ohtani ended the season rated higher.

A riser and a faller at every big update

Here's the biggest move in each direction at each of the six big updates, again Gold and up: cards rated 80 or more before or after. The biggest moves overall are usually Commons. The largest single move of the season was a Common reliever, Antonio Senzatela, 54 to 66 on May 8.

Where cards tied, I've shown the one rated higher after that update. The ties: May 8 up (Cam Schlittler, Misiorowski), June 12 up (Ernie Clement, Davis Martin) and down (Austin Riley, Dansby Swanson, Steven Kwan), July 16 up (Foster Griffin), August 14 up (Jackson Merrill) and down (Gunnar Henderson, Zach Neto), and September 11 up (Cade Cavalli, Rafael Devers).

No single update moved a Gold or better card more than 6 points. The big season-long moves were built a few points at a time.

The cards added mid-season

SDS added 504 Live Series cards during the season. They start from the rating they arrived with, and 167 of them were re-rated later. Cole Carrigg climbed further than any card that was there at launch. These are the five biggest risers among the added cards that finished 74 or higher:

Carrigg's +21 is the biggest rise of any card this season, launch or added. A card added mid-season usually arrives with a low rating, and if the player plays well, there's a lot of room above it.

What this doesn't say

Eleven cards isn't a law. These are the biggest moves among the cards people play with, and none went clearly the wrong way. That's not the same as saying every rating change tracks real performance. Part 1 showed most moves are one or two points, and those are much harder to tie to anything.

A rating isn't how a card plays. It's SDS's number. I've argued OVR is a polite fiction before, and nothing here changes that. This post is about what SDS did with the number, not whether the number is right.

It's dated October 2. That was SDS's final regular-season roster update. SDS has put out a post-season update in November in each of the last three years. If it does again, the ratings move again, and that's a new post.

What to do with this

1. Don't treat a launch rating as a floor. 14 of the 20 best launch cards ended lower. A launch Diamond is a rating for March, not for the season.
2. Watch the player, not the card. The biggest moves followed real seasons, a few points at each big update. For a pitcher, watch the strikeouts and walks, not just the ERA.
3. Give mid-season cards a look. They start low, and the ones who stick can climb as far as anyone.

Ratings are SDS's own roster update data for all 26 updates, March 27 to October 2, 2026 (the July 12 update repeats July 9). They match our database on October 27 for 1,220 of the 1,243 cards SDS listed, including every card named here. Launch is the first rating SDS's notes show for a card, and a card's change includes any rating change that came with a position switch after that. The up, down and within-3 counts leave out the 101 cards whose position SDS changed before its notes first listed them. "Card (at launch)" shows the team and position at launch. 2026 and 2025 lines are MLB regular-season numbers from MLB's official stats and Baseball-Reference. Where they differ, I've used MLB's (Gunnar Henderson's .225; Baseball-Reference has .226).

I'm Shaun. If something is wrong, tell me.